Pakistan lies at the heart of President Barack Obama’s plan to wind down America’s war in Afghanistan. If -- as he avers -- the “overarching goal” is to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the war will be fought mainly in Pakistan. With fewer than a hundred fighters, al-Qaeda was defeated long ago in Afghanistan.

And if the military aim is to “degrade” the Taliban, the fight will be waged mostly in the south of Afghanistan and on its eastern borders with Pakistan, the insurgency’s Pashtun heartland. Should the Taliban guerrillas merely cross to the Pakistani side of the boundary, Islamabad will be asked to act as backstop, preventing the Taliban from regrouping, and apprehending or smashing them instead. As envisioned in comments to Congress by Gen. David Petraeus, head of the US military’s Central Command, or CENTCOM, the Pakistani army and security services will be “a catcher’s mitt, or an anvil, whatever it may be” to the American pitcher or hammer.

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